The first wave hit the platform like a surge of gray meat.
Leo didn't have a second to think. He gripped the hilt of the stolen sword, his knuckles popping under the white gauntlets of the [Shell of Dread]. As the first three infected soldiers vaulted over the railing, Leo stepped into their guard. He wasn't a master swordsman, but he had learned enough drills from Yari and possessed enough raw, ego-driven focus to find the gaps. He drove the blade through the chest of the foremost soldier, felt the sickening resistance of ribs, and kicked the body off his steel to stagger the two behind it.
"Lyra! Now!" Leo roared.
Lyra didn't waste her breath. She dropped her stance, her silver-steel armor beginning to glow with a dull, cherry-red heat. She slammed her palms against the wooden deck boards of the platform.
The air hissed. A wave of blistering heat radiated outward, the temperature jumping so high so fast that the blood on the deck began to steam. The infected soldiers who grabbed the railings screamed as their skin fused to the blistering wood, but they didn't stop. They couldn't. The madness driving them didn't care about pain.
"They aren't flinching!" Lyra yelled, her face glistening with sweat as she drew her sword, the blade shimmering with heat haze.
"Then take their heads!" Leo spat.
The five remaining soldiers held the flanks, but the math was against them. A soldier to Leo's left—a man he recognized as a quiet veteran named Jory—was dragged over the side by three gray-skinned husks. There was no epic struggle, just a frantic scramble and a muffled shout before he disappeared into the sea of reaching hands below.
Four left.
Leo turned his attention to the King. The monarch moved with an eerie, gliding grace, his black eyes fixed on the steering oar. He was simply inevitable.
"You're in my way, Aquarius," the King's voice grated, the sound of stone on stone.
Leo didn't answer with words. He lunged. He used the [Shell of Dread] to bolster his small frame, throwing his entire weight into a downward cleave. The King didn't draw a weapon; he simply raised a hand, his palm black as ink, and caught the blade.
The steel shrieked. Leo's eyes widened as the King's grip began to crush the metal.
"Tsk. Cheating bastard," Leo muttered. He let go of the hilt just as the King snapped the blade and used the momentum to drive a gauntleted fist into the King's throat.
The impact should have crushed a windpipe. Instead, it felt like hitting a bag of wet sand. The King didn't even stumble. He backhanded Leo with a force that sent the boy spinning across the platform, his vision blurring as he slammed into the base of the steering oar.
"Aquarius!" Lyra screamed.
She intercepted the King, her heated blade whistling through the air. The King moved with a jerk, his body twitching in a way that defied natural joints, narrowly dodging the glowing steel. Lyra followed up with a flurry of strikes, the heat from her sword charring the King's royal robes, but she was being forced back.
Behind her, two more of the five soldiers fell. One was tackled by a group of madmen and torn apart; the other was infected instantly as a shadow lunged from the deck boards and snuffed out his own.
Three left. Then two. Then one.
The last soldier, a young woman who had been desperately reloading a crossbow, was swarmed. She didn't go down quietly. She pulled a short blade and took two of the infected with her, but within seconds, she was buried under a pile of gray limbs.
Now, it was only Leo and Lyra.
The platform was slick with seawater. The ship groaned again, a massive tilt to the starboard side that sent a dozen infected soldiers sliding across the main deck and into the churning Tide.
Leo scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He grabbed a heavy iron belaying pin from the base of the oar, the only weapon he had left. His ribs felt like they were floating in his chest, and the [Impervious Solitude] of his helm was diminishing, the whispers of the Tide now a deafening roar in his ears.
"Lyra, get behind me!" Leo commanded, though his voice lacked its usual arrogance.
Lyra ignored him. She was locked in a desperate brawl with General Keith, who had joined the King on the platform. Keith's basalt-hard skin was smoking where Lyra's heated sword touched it, but he was a hardened warrior. Even mad, his instincts were lethal. He caught Lyra's wrist, the heat of her armor burning his hand, but he didn't let go. He twisted, and Leo heard the sickening pop of a dislocated shoulder.
Lyra gasped, her sword clattering to the deck.
"No!" Leo lunged forward, swinging the iron pin like a club. He caught Keith in the side of the head, the metal ringing against the General's skull. It was enough to make Keith release Lyra, but not enough to stop him.
The King stepped over Lyra's fallen form, his dark gaze locked onto Leo.
"Do you think you can save them?" the King whispered. "Pathetic brother. Pathetic."
'Brother?'
There was no time to think about that now.
Leo backed up until his heels hit the edge of the platform. Below him, hundreds of gray-skinned soldiers were climbing the supports, their fingers clawing at the wood. Ahead of him stood the most powerful men in the realm, turned into husks by a spirit he couldn't even see.
Lyra had managed to kill two of the leaders. That still didn't change the situation.
The storm above reached a crescendo. Thunderclaps roared. Lightning struck. Waves collided.
Leo looked at Lyra, who was clutching her arm, her face pale from pain and heat exhaustion. He looked at his own hands—small, trembling, and devoid of the magic or aura anyone here possessed.
The King reached out, his black-veined fingers inches from Leo's throat. The hundreds of infected soldiers below surged upward, their hands finally reaching the top of the railing.
The moment the King's hand reached Leo's throat, the King's face contorted. His whole body became enveloped by a shadow. And finally, Leo saw the true form of the Shadow. Its whole body was jet black, its skin like dreadful armor radiating nothing but madness. Shadow tendrils shot from its body, killing the soldiers around it.
"Watch. Watch them die, brother," the shadow rasped with wickedness.
Soon, the whole ship was surrounded by darkness. Everything went silent.
Only Leo, Lyra, and the thousands of civilians remained.
The darkness didn't just stay like a veil. It was a massive shadow originating from the Shadow that stood in front of Leo and Lyra.
The shadow let go of Leo's neck.
"You know the Spirit of Madness? He's your brother?" she stammered.
Leo gritted the triangular teeth of his armor and clenched his fist.
"I don't know the bastard from anywhere."
Caught in the shadow's embrace, the shadows of the dead soldiers that had once disappeared rose all around them—including the King's original one—gazing at them with madness and… hollowness.
The Battle of Shadow Embrace was about to begin.